Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1887-06-16

ing with that Of the ships bilge water and
other mysterious but penetrating aromas,
was unpearaoIy Ioarnsome. Everything
whirled and danced about me. My head felt
like big balloon banging about among
clouds of solid rock. / saw double The little
smoky lamp had great luminous rings about
it. The faces and forms of our captain bold
and his two mates grew gigantic and dwarfed
to pigmes with each lurch of the labOring
vessel don't know what might have hap
pened in my desperate sickness and fury had
not the schooner at that instant shipped
generous sea, a ton or SO OF which burst
through the door of the companion way and
snuffed out the savage hilarity OF these old
salts meal in a jiffy, giving me escape from
their prosecutions and themselves something
besides a landlubber to play with, during
which heaven-sent intermiSsion l reeled into
berth and that sodden. deathly stupor which
follows the best physical and mental efforts
of the bravest of men to battle against that
direst of scourges and most inscrutible OF
mysteries, the sickness Of the sea.
1t would be safe to record about one week
of my voyage to Cuba as being period OF
dreadful blank 1t is possible that such expe-
riences are needed to humble man. Ii SO,
one should figure on things SO as to be hum
bled that way only once. But after what
one might term a partial restoration to con-
sciousness, there was much Of true interest
about me.
The captain, who, to do him credit, had
underneath his preposterously mean nature
some bits of warmth and geniality and an
occasional revelation of colossal humor, gave
me the half of his own berth, which stood in
the side of another little six foot cabin at the
rear of where we ate. This compartment
was a queer place. The walls were filled with
pictures Of sea fights, and many worse than
those pasted against the partitions and
CLOSED over with varnish. The carpet, whose
ZigZag pattern was obliterated with grease
and tar, had been woven on an old oak loom
up at Eastport by our captains grandmother
along about the time when the Enterprise
took in the Boxer and the Constitution cap
tured the Guerrero
harbors The old hair lounge yawned and
creaked with the ceaseless movement OF the
vessel, and nobody had the heart to burden 1t
further. At the head of the bed stood the
softly ticking ships chronometer. Against
the center of the forward partition was a 1T
tie desk where the captain studied his courses,
his logarithms and charts, and figured his
"reckonings" and his gains; and over this,
day and night, swung very smoky lamp.
Before this, as before midnight shrIne 1
shall ever remember our captain; for, of wild
nights, and almost all nights for that
matter, clad only in drawers, undershlrt,
sou'wester hat and rubber shoes, he roamed
about this mite of den like Gagged bear, or
snorted and sputtered at his desk, scratching
and creaking on an old slate with filnty
pencil, and swearing the most terrible oaths
8 1-on
ble company At these times an old briar
root pipe stood out sidewise from his scraggy
jaw. And he puffed, puffed, puffed. For
certain reasons | am patient with those who
love tobacco. But the grade of our captains
tobacco, the age of that briar root pipe, the
condensed and recondensed sections of that
smoke which could have been caught, spliced,
twisted and hung up to dry, were something
undoubtedly worse than Virgil and Dante
encountered in the tenth gulf of old Lucifer's
dominionS.
The old salt, too, resented anybody sleep
ing. The more 1 sneezed and strangled the
more he puffed. To vary this he would yell
out all sorts of wild old ballads Snort, puff,
sneeze for a few minutes. Then
sYe pariaments of England ye lords and es-
SOhslutI wen "AoC Ou iS ~DOus, esAiA "Asss yON
mean to do;
You're now at war with Yankees, and you will
rue the day
That you reused the sons Of liberty in North
America
Swear, puff, snort, and then:
Main boom! top and lift!
Davy take a fall!
Jib sheet! Tail ropel
Let 60 the haul.''
While the sleepy man at the wheel, startled
with the unearthly commands, would yell
back, LAY, ay, sir!" at which our captain
would chuckle, ogre like, all by himself. Then
swear, snort, puff, and again
''I've often heard it told that the British seamen
bold
Could fog the tars Of France so neat and
handy, o!
But they never found their match till the Yankee
gave them CATCH
For the Yankee boys for fighting are the oan-
dies, or
Then this old sea dragon would take
whirl around the little cabin in front, until
he had stirred up the tired mates and the
cook, and they would rise up in the darkness
of their little filthy caves and humbly ask:
"Bes ther anything wantin', sir!" When lie
would below at them the inquiry why in the
name of blankety blank he couldn't be let
alone, and return to his lair to chuckle and
puff.
A very interesting and lively character
was our captain, taken "by and large" as the
farmers say.
But as the days grew into weeks, and we
crept into the warmer latitudes, the mani
fold asperities of this sort of actual existence
seemed to fade away, giving one who can
apply the philosophy of patience and indiffer
ence to immediate surroundings extraordi-
nary opportunity for the larger view and
more generous study of sea folk and sea life.
One thing was made clear: A sailors life is
not the one sung in the ballads. 1t is an end
less round of duties day and night. Take, for
instance, our vessel. Two men and a mate
comprised each watch. The watches are
each four hours night and day, with the
exception Of the two dog watches of two
hours each. That is twelve hours of each
twenty-four to hard labor and responsibility.
Then there is endless setting and reefng of
sails: all hands are liable at any moment to
be called on deck into service where danger is
as great as service; the pumps are to be tend |
ed, for every ship leaks; the rails and guards |
are to be mended; the matches are always need. |
ing attention new sails must be ''bent" in place
of those lost in squalls; old sails must be |
patched the cargo requires continual looking |
after for if it "shifts," God pity all; the |
rigging is newly Served" the anchors |
"beaten" and painted, the decks "tarred |
down." and night and day there is never an
end to flashing" things fas. and faster 1t is
dogs life, and sailors nearly all live like
dogs and are treated like dogs. Out in the
focastle there, their hunks are wretched
boxes that a land tramp would scorn. From
how 81